


We Can Be Us

by LiveLaughLovex



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, angst with hopeful ending, post 3x12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:20:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8840854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak have a much-needed conversation after she leaves him in the alleyway with the words, "I don't want to be a woman that you love."





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally posted nothing related to Arrow on any website, so I hope that this isn't awful. This is the fifth version and was written in less than an hour, so I hope it's okay.

Felicity Smoak didn’t know why she kept doing this to herself. As she walked into her apartment after making the trek from the foundry, she had absolutely no desire to do anything other than collapse into bed and go to sleep immediately in an effort to escape this day. She knew herself well enough to know that her brain would never allow that to happen after what had taken place in the past few hours. No, she would be up for hours yet, considering things that had already been considered more than once and allowing Oliver Queen to break her heart once again without even being there. 

She knew that if his return had taken place under different circumstances, this wouldn’t be happening. She knew that he loved her, and she had always known that she loved him. What they felt was not what was complicated; it was how they chose to deal with what they felt. And, once again, she had been overruled by the man whose side she had fought at for the past three years. She was beginning to realize why her mother didn’t let men in anymore; after finding the person that you loved more than anyone else, it seemed cheap to even consider caring about anyone else. And Felicity had found her person. 

She knew that the Oliver that had left and the Oliver that had returned were the same person. She knew that Oliver Queen was someone that lived and died for his family and for the people that he loved. She knew that Ra’s al Ghul would not always be in the dark about who had taken Sara’s life, knew that the man they called the Demon’s Head would eventually come for Thea, knew that Oliver would never allow that to happen. In theory, she understood why he was working with Malcolm Merlyn. In reality, she could not even begin to imagine something more senseless than his partnership with the man that had killed his father, his best friend, his ex-girlfriend, and over five hundred other people without blinking. She couldn’t have imagined a world where Oliver would willingly work with Merlyn before he had left, and she didn’t want to live in a world where Oliver was willingly working with Merlyn now that it had become reality. If that was petty and childish, so be it, but she had made her decisions the same as he had made his, and she stood by them. 

She knew that her words in the alleyway had hurt him. Hell, they had hurt her. She had waited so long for Oliver to tell her how he felt, had waited for so long for him to give them a chance, but she had meant what she had said. If he could work with Merlyn, a man that had threatened his mother, murdered his father, turned his sister into a killer, and caused the death of a woman that he had once loved, she was nearly completely sure that she didn’t want to be a person that he loved if that was what being loved by him was like. 

Felicity sighed, running a hand through her hair in an effort to yank herself out of those unpleasant thoughts. She glanced towards the phone on her coffee table and hesitated before turning away. No matter what her heart wanted, her head knew that calling Oliver at the late hour was not something that was advisable. Because of this, she simply removed one of the five pints of ice cream from her freezer, settled onto her sofa beneath a blanket, and turned on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix. 

She was halfway through Meredith’s iconic ‘Love me’ speech when the knock sounded at the door. It was something that she was already expecting, but that didn’t make it any easier to climb from the sofa and walk towards her front door. She breathed in deeply before placing her hand on the knob and turn it. She didn’t need to look through the peephole; she had been expecting the person on the other side of the door since the moment she had left him heartbroken in an alley. 

“Oliver, it’s late, and I’m tired, and you just came back from the dead,” she murmured softly when she pulled the door open. “So, as much as I’d love to have this argument right now, can we put it on hold until tomorrow? I have ice cream on the coffee table that is melting.” 

He looked confused, exhausted, and heartbroken all at once, and she began to feel guiltier than she had in the past few hours when she saw the storm of emotions that had taken over his eyes. She sighed slightly, holding the door open enough so that she could see him without allowing him entrance. “Oliver, I really don’t want to do this right now. I don’t want to see you right now.” 

He nodded slightly. “I know.”

“Then why are you here?” Felicity asked, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. 

He looked hesitant to answer, but did so anyway. “I didn’t know where else to go.” 

She nodded, biting her lip before opening the door wider. “Come in,” she said softly, stepping aside so that he could accept the invitation. “I have some ice cream. It’s a little late for the calories, but you probably have a higher allowance for them than I do.” 

“I’m all right,” Oliver said, not even commenting on the ramble. “I know what Merlyn has done. It’s killing me to work with him.” 

Well, it seemed that they were skipping past the pleasantries. Okay, dealer’s choice. 

Felicity sighed, taking a seat on her sofa. “Then why are you?”

“I’m not ready to take on Ra’s al Ghul by myself. Merlyn was trained by him. If they find out what happened to Sara, if they find out that Thea was the one to put those arrows in her, they will come for her. As much as I hate Merlyn, I don’t hate him enough to put my sister’s life at risk.” Oliver looked hesitant to continue, but something in her eyes must have made him more willing to do so. “I know that what I said to you before I left was something you’ve wanted to hear for a while. I’m sorry that I told you when I was ready to die.”

“Well, you have told me before, Oliver. It’s just never without an ulterior motive. ‘I love you, but I’m only telling you right now to fool Slade’. ‘I love you, but we can’t be together because we just got blown up and instead of talking to you, I’m just going to walk away from you’. ‘I love you, but who gives a damn, because I’m going to be dead soon’!” Her voice raised with every word, and Oliver looked as remorseful as she had ever seen him. “It’s not that I need to hear the words, Oliver; it’s that I need to know that they will make a difference. You tell me you love me, but it doesn’t mean anything, because you’ll never take it anywhere. I have never met someone that looks death in the eyes so often and is still terrified of living their life, Oliver. Love is not supposed to have an ulterior motive. Life is not supposed to be as terrifying as you make it out to be.” 

“I’m not terrified of life, Felicity.” He looked so exhausted, and all she wanted to do was hug him, but she couldn’t. They were feet away from each other, but she had never before felt such distance between the two of them. 

“You are, Oliver. Maybe you have a right to be. The people you love have a habit of dying on you, and your life hasn’t been easy by any stretch of the imagination. But I love you, and you won’t let me. You are not this monster that you seem to see yourself as, and you are not unlovable, and I have no idea how to deal with the fact that you won’t even consider anything more than what you have right now. You deserve so much more than what you have right now; we deserve so much more than what we have right now.” Felicity looked at him sadly. “If you want more from me, then tell me. But I can’t keep doing this with you. I can’t keep letting you break my heart.” 

She didn’t expect a response, so she stood and headed for the door, holding it open for him. When he arrived at her side, he gazed at her with eyes so expressive that she felt the need to spend the next few hours drowning in them. He cupped her cheek and pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she tried not to sink into his embrace, tried not to do anything other than stand still, but her body was as aware of her love for Oliver as her heart was. 

He murmured the words to her that she had always wanted to hear from him. “I don’t just want more for us, Felicity. I want everything for us.” His lips were still pressed against her forehead as she spoke, and she inhaled deeply. “So, I won’t stop. I will take down Ra’s, and I will protect Thea, and then you and me…”

“We can be us?” Felicity asked breathlessly, her eyes still closed.

He smiled gently against her skin. “Yeah,” he murmured. “We can be us.” 

As he walked out of her apartment to begin his crusade against Ra’s al Ghul, she felt something that she didn’t often associate with their relationship: hope.


End file.
